Architect says he will work on fifth golf course for Kohler

Course would meet all the requirements to host a U.S. Open, Pete Dye says

Whistling Straits will play host to a third PGA Championship in 2015 and the Ryder Cup in 2020. The U.S. Women's Open has twice been held at Blackwolf Run.

Could Herbert V. Kohler Jr. now have his sights set on another major championship?

A golf course Kohler is planning to build on 247 acres of Kohler Co.-owned land just north of Kohler-Andrae State Park in Sheboygan County would meet all the requirements to host a U.S. Open, according to architect Pete Dye.

"This property has got parking and everything else," Dye said in a telephone interview Friday, confirming he would soon be working on what will be Kohler's fifth course in Wisconsin. "You could park the world there. It's right off the interstate.

"I would think that Herb would be looking for either the PGA or the USGA to go there."

Kohler Co. has abandoned plans for a luxury wilderness retreat on the land in the Town of Wilson and will propose another use for the prime wooded parcel at the next meeting of the town board on April 7. Dye confirmed that the firm plans to build another golf course.

He said he originally looked at the land more than 25 years ago before Kohler decided to build Blackwolf Run in Kohler. There are 36 holes now at Blackwolf Run and 36 a few miles away at Whistling Straits. Dye designed all four courses.

"When I first went up there, that's the land I looked at," Dye said. "He didn't build there because it had only (room enough for) 18 holes. At Blackwolf Run, you could put 54 holes there.

"The next thing I knew he had me up there on the land at Whistling Straits."

Kohler brought in thousands of truckloads of sand to build the Straits and its companion Irish Course. That wouldn't be necessary at the proposed site 10 miles south.

"It's vastly different," Dye said. "It's sand. That helps a lot. It's perfect. You can push the sand from (point) A to B and no problem."

Dye, 88, said there was about a half-mile of Lake Michigan shoreline on the property, room enough for four holes along the water. The wooded land is bordered to the west by the Black River. Dye said the current plan was for the clubhouse to be built on the south end of the property.

"Every time I send a map up to Mr. Kohler he changes it," said Dye, who hasn't seen the property since the 1980s but has a visit planned for May.

"I remember the land pretty well," he said. "It was sandy and it was where you want to build."

Kohler also owns land closer to Whistling Straits in the Town of Mosel, but "it's piecemeal," Dye said, and "not big enough for a golf course."

Kohler has made no secret of the fact that he would like one of his courses to someday host a U.S. Open. In a 2010 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he said, "Will a U.S. Open come to Whistling Straits someday? I am sure it will."

However, the Straits is solidly aligned with the PGA of America, and the PGA and the U.S. Golf Association generally do not bring championships to the same properties. Though Blackwolf Run twice has held the U.S. Women's Open, it is not a likely candidate for a men's Open.

A new course could solve that problem. Or, future PGA events could be moved there, which would allow Whistling Straits to host the U.S. Open.

In the meantime, Erin Hills already has beaten Kohler to the punch. In 2017, the links-style course near Hartford will play host to the first U.S. Open in Wisconsin.

Additionally, Mike Keiser√, developer of the acclaimed Bandon Dunes resort in Oregon, is planning a similar high-end multicourse development on 1,500 acres south of Wisconsin Rapids. Construction of the first course will begin later this year.

Is Kohler's plan for a new championship course a direct response to competition?

"I don't know," Dye said with a laugh. "I don't know where Herb is coming from."